American Businessman and owner of Olympique Lyonnais John Textor deactivated his Twitter account on Sunday, though he has not blamed recent pressures and death threats. Textor had often used Twitter to engage with fans, who are spread across two continents, but recently decided that there were too many moving objects to consider.
The 57-year-old owns three other clubs in addition to Les Gones: Botafogo in Brasil’s Série A, Crystal Palace in the English Premier League, and Belgian side RWD Molenbeek. He received death threats over the transfer of Jeffinho from Botafogo to its new sister-club Lyon in January.
“Twitter doesn’t work for me, honestly,” said Textor in an interview with Globo.
“Because it’s very rare for all four clubs to win on the same day, and it’s almost never a good idea to celebrate something on Twitter. One group is feeling great while the other is feeling bad. This is football. So, recently, it made more sense for me to just not comment anymore.”
Two years ago, the Textor name was far less present in the footballing world. He owned zero clubs, until his first foray into football ownership came in August of 2021 when he took joint ownership of Crystal Palace.
Now, in 2023, he owns or part-owns four clubs, three of which are in Europe. This has led certain fans to become disillusioned with his business mentality; they have criticised his ‘multi-club structure’ approach to football. He has claimed that while his method of business is not best summarised by this term, he conceded that there was “no better term for what his organisation were doing”.
GFFN | Brendan Cox
